Battle of Rivals
by Scorched Ice
Summary: A deathmatch in virtual reality.


**A/N: This is a slice-of-life style one-shot about Irken Soldier training. Told from the POV of several original characters.**

This was the day. B vs. A. His team vs. Kan's team. Whoever won would instantly get selected for Advanced Training, which would lead directly to Invader, bypassing both Irken Elite training and The Test, both of which were very difficult. Whoever lost would be lumped with the other teams below them and end up with Elite, and must complete Elite Training and The Test in order to become Invader. Everyone here wanted to win.

Becoming Invader was the highest and most important military rank they could achieve. It was what every trainee aimed for.

Last game, Snook had messed up. He had misjudged the timing of the jump and died. The rest of his team was still pretty mad at him, because that meant Kan's team managed to catch up. Now it was winner takes all.

Oh well, Snook had a plan, and B will be the one winning this one. He and Reb had hacked into the level and copied the layout for the team to study. Reb also added a few 'surprises' to give them an edge.

Yes, it was cheating. But it was a perfectly legitimate way to win, provided no one caught you do it. To win is the goal around here; winning was pretty much the ultimate problem solver.

Group B, Snook's team, was lined up behind the virtual reality helmets. Group A, Kan's team, stood opposite.

At this moment, the two teams were trying to out-glare one another.

This time, though, Snook was confident.

* * *

Team Snook (we never agreed on that name!) put on their Virtual Reality helmets, and Team Kan did the same. Snook pulled the familiar light, cool metal over his eyes and fastened the straps. He waited for the feeling of being transported out of reality that followed.

The familiar feeling came, and the feeling crept down his whole body as the VR machine calibrated to each trainee.

Then it was gone. All of it. Snook was now standing in a swamp area with his team. He was assaulted by the moist, overwhelming smell of swamp and almost gagged; the simulations were designed to be as realistic as possible.

Kan's team would have spawned in a different area. They would be quite far away. Now was the time to prepare.

"Right, guys. You know the plan, right?" he asked. He needed to make sure before proceeding.

"Of course we do. This had better work, you know," replied Col, who was glaring at him with his tiny eyes. His short antennae twitched in irritation. Snook seemed oblivious.

Snook nodded, satisfied. "Then let us begin."

Col broke off the group with San and disappeared into the trees. Snook headed in a different direction with their sniper Tess. Reb and Moss remained in the area. Reb looked up at Moss uncertainly with his red eyes, and obtained the tools hidden under a rock a small bit away, tools which Reb had programmed into the machine. They began building traps in strategic locations.

* * *

Col and San had headed in the direction of the nearest node. Their objective was to capture it. Having a node would grant them an advantage over the other team, which included extra health, defense and firepower. Normally, both teams were close to a node as to be fair, but Reb had reprogrammed the other team's closest node to explode.

Col had laughed when Snook explained it to them- he loved to cheat. San had looked uncomfortable though. Oh well, he thought, winning was the most important part after all.

The path they chose was met with little resistance, probably due to Reb's meddling, and what was there was easily destroyed by a few shots from Col's gun or a few slices from San's sword.

They heard something. San stopped, silent and listening. Col peeked out from the tree in front. In front of them was a huge swamp or forest monster of some sort. It seemed to be protecting the shiny node just beyond.

Like every other time, San ran out towards it with a determined glint in her purple eyes, energy sword poised. The creature turned around. It was slow, and San was much faster. She reached the creature and sliced at its underbelly. Col advanced on the creature from the other side of the clearing, firing shots from his gun. To his surprise, the creature seemed to absorb the shots. However, it quickly turned its attention on Col instead. San took the distraction as an opportunity to use her PAK and propel herself upward, driving the blade deep into the creature's belly. It let out a huge roar, somehow flinging both San and the sword away. Col saw it rear up—

And he flung himself out of the way and landed in a roll as it spat a noxious looking green substance at where he was a split-second ago. Col used the momentum from the roll to sprint into cover before the creature could spot him again. He watched it focus on San instead.

Trying another tactic, he aimed his gun at the creature's big yellow eyes. As soon as the shot made contact, the eye exploded as it was penetrated, spurting out goo and the creature roared in pain, shaking its head this way and that. Something Kan would like to see, he thought. Col tried to take out the second eye, but it was tossing around its head too much- he missed.

* * *

San saw the creature spit poison at Col after it flung her away. She decided to get on top of it. Col's shot rang out and the creature's eye exploded; unfortunately, this meant that it was much harder to leap onto its head. She used her PAK booster to climb a nearby tree- the short bursts could not take her directly onto the head. As she judged the jump, another shot rang out and missed her by a tiny amount. That was Col, who was somehow stupid enough to shoot at a crazily moving target, she thought. The shot made her lose balance, and she jumped early.

Her body made up for it by instinctively adjusting her blade to slash through the monster instead. She felt her blade make contact as she fell, and felt gloop splatter onto her. Her fall slowed as she touched the ground, uninjured, thanks to her PAK boosters. The creature was making a lot of noise and careening all over the place, so, without looking, she knew to run for cover.

* * *

Col saw San appear from above and slash the creature lengthwise. As soon as he saw that, he knew they had killed it. He ran forward through its stomping feet towards the node on the other side. The sooner he was finished, the higher the chances of winning.

The node was a plug with a lid. After removing the lid, one would plug their PAK into the socket. This triggers a kind of mini-game that takes a few minutes to beat, during which the trainee will be vulnerable to attack. This was why all the defences must be taken care of first.

Col emerged from the node and a whirring noise meant that it was theirs. San nodded at him and the two moved on to meet the others.

* * *

Snook and Tess arrived at a marker in the open swamp, marking the beginning of the 'unprotected area'. This was the area where nodes did not affect the players, so no side would be disadvantaged.

This was also where one of the Crystals was.

The Crystals were the main objective of this Simulation. The team to possess all three wins. They knew where the Crystal was- its stronghold was their target.

As they approached, Tess split off to give support. She wasn't one for hand-to-hand combat.

Snook walked quickly, gun poised. All was quiet.

Suddenly, the ground exploded with gunfire as two members of the opposing team- Stek and Tal- attacked Snook. Kan had obviously sent them to the stronghold to ambush them. Snook was surprised- Kan had access to the map as well. Oh well, he thought, and activated his rocket boosters and energy shielding, blasting forward away from the fire—

-directly into the stronghold defenses, which opened fire. What's more, Stek and Tal were still shooting at him.

Snook dodged- sort of. It was pretty hard to dodge. So he didn't dodge, he tried to dodge. He blasted his own fire all over the place, in the attempt to stop the fire raining on his protective bubble. The bubble would run out of energy soon. Vaguely, he was aware that some of his shots hit the defenses. Snook suddenly paused, and blasted towards an opening that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

* * *

Tess was scaling the surrounding area to the main fortress, and silently crept onto a balcony area nearby. This overlooked the main room and courtyard, where she saw Snook get ambushed. She observed, however bad it made her feel, and waited for the perfect time to strike. Her rifle only fired one shot at a time.

A huge explosion reached her ears, from the other side of the level. She knew what it was- the sabotaged node exploding. The two from the other team, Stek and Tal, looked in that direction, startled. Tess took this opportunity to take them out at the same time- they were standing very close to one another. She blasted them in a shower of plasma, and they were teleported out of the system.

Two down. Not bad, she thought. She moved away. Snook may need support, and she always moved after shooting anyway.

* * *

Snook heard an explosion. It startled him for a moment, but when he looked back, he remembered what it was. He deactivated his shielding as the robot defenses were temporarily distracted when the noise temporarily overloaded their auditory receptors. He squeezed the trigger a few times while making for a turret. Before the robot on the turret saw him, he had blasted it away and taken the controls. Shielded from the onslaught of plasma, he took out every defense with the turret. He angled it at the doorway, but Stek and Tal were gone. Satisfied, he abandoned the turret and proceeded into the next room.

* * *

Tess could see Snook using the turret so she decided to clear the next room. She smiled as her plasma bolts rained down on the VR defenses, destroying every one.

* * *

Snook could see that someone had cleared this room already- it was filled with shards of twisted metal. He shrugged, and simply grabbed the Crystal which magnetized, turned flat and attached itself to his armor. Tess jumped down from wherever she was hiding before.

"We've got one. Hopefully Reb and Moss have the second," she said. Snook activated his PAK communications device and spoke.

"Have you got it?" he asked. Reb answered.

"Yep. The monster thing walked right into the trap," he replied. Snook nodded, even though Reb couldn't see him.

"Good. I've got the stronghold one," he said, and hung up. "We'll split up and converge on him," he said. Tess nodded and left.

* * *

Kan knew that Tal, Stek and Speck were killed off. They hadn't replied. Speck was probably killed by the explosion. Snook somehow set the node to explode. That was what he felt had happened. Not that it mattered too much, for he had intercepted Col and San and taken them out. Now he was standing on open ground, waiting for Snook to show up. He was confident he could win, even though they probably had two Crystals by now. It was time to finish this.

* * *

Tess was moving toward the designated point when her PAK issued a warning. Something had locked onto her signature- this much she knew when hot plasma exploded around her.

* * *

Snook tried to keep dry. The swamp was full of ground that looked solid but sank into watery swampy filth when stepped on. He was very tempted to glide over it with his boosters but he needed to save fuel for this confrontation.

He spotted something. It was still, but he knew what it was. Or rather, who it was. Kan. He had seen him too.

This was it. Kan rushed forward—

-and disappeared. Snook blinked, confused. Something hard struck him from nowhere. His instincts screamed 'cloaking device' and he knew he needed to even out the fight. He issued a signal through his PAK.

* * *

Reb got the signal. He sent out a line of commands to the simulator.

* * *

Snook knew it worked. He immediately activated his PAK legs and his heat-motion sensors. Looking through the goggles, he could see Kan as a red and yellow blur. His PAK legs helped him dodge Kan's attacks. Kan realized what had happened and turned visible – there was no point staying invisible. He switched weapons to a gun in a single movement and shot at him.

Snook dodged the first two shots but a third came from behind – and it was different. Plasma. Two of his PAK legs were vaporized and he overbalanced. Realizing this, he quickly retracted them and landed with a roll that carried him back onto his feet. He dived out of the way of another shot and blasted madly in the general direction of his second attacker. Not knowing if any hit, he sent another signal.

* * *

As per the plan, Reb and Moss stayed away from Kan to protect their Crystal. Moss was sitting, bored, so Reb told her to go help Snook. Reb received another signal and issued more commands.

* * *

Snook had been hit quite a few times, but the 'surprises' Reb installed allowed the node benefit reach him, as well as a double healing rate. Kan had now switched to an energy sword and was somehow teleporting all over the place so Snook couldn't get a clear shot. Snook had a handheld energy shield out to stave off attacks that could come from anywhere, as he had no power for a bubble. At the same time, his PAK fixed the PAK legs.

The energy sword flashed in the corner of his vision and he brought the shield up the meet it. The blade had been brought down with more force than before so he staggered, almost losing balance. However, his PAK legs were repaired.

In the second Kan took to raise his sword and hit a second time due to Snook's stagger, Snook's PAK leg shot out from his PAK and skewered down onto Kan's head—

-but Kan noticed and engaged his teleporter—

-but he was too late. The sharp point impaled him—

-but at the last second he managed to avoid it with his head and it drove into his leg.

Kan gave a slightly surprised cry that sounded something like: "Gah!" and pulled his leg out of the sharp metal, ripping a chunk of leg off. Blood spewed out and a second PAK leg was about to follow the first, but Kan teleported away in time, leaving part of his leg stuck to Snook's PAK leg. Snook smiled victoriously. That was a critical hit.

But it wasn't enough, and Kan switched to a gun again and kept to a distance, snarling, shooting Snook again and again. He blocked with the shield, but when the shot came for the umpteenth time, the shield lost power.

Snook stared at it for a moment and dived out of the way just in time. It was so close that the heat from the shot burnt his skin a little, but he was fine. He couldn't help but think, yet again, that the simulations were a little too realistic.

Kan sensed an opportunity and teleported next to Snook, who was still getting up. Snook felt a direct gunshot punch him right in his torso and he felt the impact push him backwards so he landed rather painfully on his back. The shot had been absorbed mostly by his armour, but the armor now had a small hole, and as Kan advanced again, Snook sent out another signal. The one for last resorts.

Kan shot him again, and Snook could feel the fizzing energy rip through his chest. It reminded him of the practical training exercise on Planet Zulu 62, and the acidic pincers of the Wrippers, but much more potent. Why Kan's gun of choice was the Ripper he would never know.

Luckily, the dulling chemicals of his PAK kicked into action immediately and the immense pain was reduced to a dull throb. Unluckily, he was losing blood, his health bar was down to one-fifth, the repairs would take a while, and Kan had switched to his other weapon of choice- the blue energy sword.

Kan stood over him, grinning like a freak. All his calmness and composed coldness was gone now, and when Snook looked into his eyes, it was as though Kan's soul was dancing in joy. Similar to the kind of joy Spork gets when presented with a ship full of snacks, only creepier. It reminded him of how Kan looked when the 100 teams watched the demonstration video of Adviser Fidd being brutally murdered. Snook didn't know why he kept having flashbacks today. Maybe he was about to (virtually) die, and the Simulator was acknowledging that…?

Kan had raised the sword high, and it was only then Snook realized that he might just lose if the 'surprise' didn't arrive soon…

A great rumble shook the swampy ground and vibrations could be seen on the brown-green water. Kan almost lost his balance. Irritated to be distracted from his 'moment', he looked around, confused. Snook scrambled away to a distance and Kan saw something… not good.

No less than five huge creatures like the ones that usually guarded nodes appeared. And they were all heading toward Kan.

Snook didn't know if Kan could take out five swamp monsters. He didn't want to risk it so he aimed…

…and fired. Many times. Kan didn't see it coming; he was too focused on the five giants. Snook was up and running before the shot had found its mark. His PAK had repaired him enough. He reached Kan and pulled the Crystal off his armor.

Everything faded and the familiar feeling of leaving a simulation invaded him. He held up the last Crystal and broke into laughter as he was pulled back into the real world.

They had won.


End file.
